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Tuesday, 11 June 2013

The Quiet Woman

This is not a travel piece in the conventional sense. It is a journey through life.

The Quiet Woman

She rarely spoke to me.

A quiet woman.

Yet her body told a thousand stories.

Her hair

snowy-owl white, feathery, falling in wisps about her face. She’d no time for herself, always tending others: a husband, twelve children and any other strays who came her way - the homeless, the abandoned, the neglected and the orphaned; the endless stream of farmhands passing through, stopping by her kitchen table. She thought nothing of cooking up breakfast for twenty.

Her skin

weathered brown and rough like an old chamois. Lined and cracked, I’d trace each story line with my mind - a lifetime of lines, a lifetime of stories.

Her hands

gnarled and twisted. Hands that cradled babies, buried month old twins, wiped away tears, smacked bottoms, shook a child in anger, held a child in love. Those hands had tugged knots from hair, twisted strands into braids or tied them down in rags.

Hands that manhandled pigs, wrung the necks of turkeys, squeezed the teats of milking cows and laid orphaned lambs into the Aga to thaw.

Thank you, Chris.It is - I suppose it is creative non-fiction flash rather than flash fiction. And the woman is indeed my Grandmother - and the descriptions more or less accurate - as far as the memory is accurate!

Thanks, Chris.She was a woman of her time in a rural environment and when I think back on her, I'm amazed at what she achieved. I began to wonder if my piece didn't qualify for the comp but it's flash writing rather than flash fiction,so I guess it's ok. I expect some of the fiction is quite close to creative non-fiction anyway!

Really wonderful piece. It moves so smoothly from part to part, from one observation/remembrance to the next. Nicely done! And yes, creative non-fiction is all part of the flash world -- in my book, anyway!

I didn't! But the competition was choc-a-block with really talented writers - and I'm quite new to flash fiction. Pleased to have had a lovely remark from one of the judges above (Michelle Elvy) so that was good enough for me!Thanks for your Feedback, Elizabeth.

Hi Helen, I'm really glad you wrote this as your entry for the flash mob; I'd love to see flash nonfic as a category! And you aced it. As you said, some fiction is quite close to nonfic, and I think the reverse is true as well, which brings about all kinds of arguments about what nonfiction really is.

About Me

I spent my childhood in the back of my Dad’s Morris Minor, travelling for 3-4 hours all over Ireland for a quick run-around and a sandy sandwich before repeating the journey again in reverse. It should have put me off travelling for life, but bizarrely I’m still happiest when on the road – and over the past couple of years, I’ve started writing about it. Since then, I’ve has won prizes in a number of travel writing competitions, including runner-up with the British Guild of Travel Writers in 2011. I’ve also had pieces published in The Daily Telegraph and the Guardian, Wanderlust Magazine and various travel e-zines.
I am currently writing a guide book on the Peak District as part of Bradt Publishers ‘Slow’ series.